Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Coast Guard Beach

The crosshatched light has suffered all the way from Spain. Wind rattlesthe flags at the coast guard station.A few kites brave the gloom. Your footprintsimpress little tide pools. Placingmy feet in them, I feel pebbles roll like eyeballs in whorls of sand.

A framework spiked from driftwoodhuddles against the bluff. Carven“LOCALS ONLY” warns awaythe casual tourist. Charcoaland a ring of fish-heads and shellsassert that varieties of hunger distinguish species from species.

Despite the presence of your footprintsyou’ve never walked this surly beach,never committed yourself to solvingthe presumptions of breaking surf.Seven hundred miles offshore todaya tropical storm is rending chartsto detour shipping north and south.If I followed your footprints far enough that storm would impale me.

Framed by the driftwood structure I notea shadow precisely like yours elongate against the grain of light and wonder that you’d impose yourself so boldly on such primal matter. You gain nothing but worship of stone,weed and shell, an effort spentto impress and comfort us both in some distant parallel plane.